The Battle Pit
by Levade
Summary: Many decades have passed since Aragorn's rule and some things have fallen out of memory and time. Settlers moving into the Shire should beware of things left behind. Written for Spook me 2017. Inspired by "The Scouring of the Shire", Return of the King.


**The Battle Pit**

Written for Spook Me_2017

 _"To the dismay of those that stood by, about the body of Saruman a grey mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the Hill."_

"The Scouring of the Shire", Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien

* * *

We'd heard the old tales, of course we had. Trees that walked and fought, giants made of stone. Elves, immortal and more beautiful than the prettiest woman, dwarves who battled dragons, and little folk who fought some last, great battle in that green hill country just before the sea.

I reckoned it was just nonsense to keep folk out. After all, no one had seen any of the little folk for generations, not in the hill country or near Bree. They said once upon a time the little folk had lived in holes in those hills.

They say a lot of things, and a lot of it makes no sense. The Barrow Downs are just graves and the old forest is strange, that's true, but none I know has ever seen a tree move without the help of the wind.

They warned us, but we laughed and rebuilt the bridge, took out the rotting old sign that folk said used to warn us big people out of the Shire, and settled into the most lovely farm land ever seen. Those tall folk with the dark hair and grey eyes, they warned us to leave the sandy stretch near the hills be, and not disturb it. Said it was a battle pit, from long ago. We left it alone, aye, but it was near where the hills rose and little grew there in that sandy soil. 'Twas no hardship to let it be.

Nothing happened. The crops grew well, the children ran and played and all that nay-saying? Superstitions. Old wives telling tales.

Until that eleventh year.

The eleventh fall when harvest time came and Young Miller laid his leg open with scythe. Bled out right there on the field, he did, and the blood stained the wheat terrible, a trail of it that didn't fade until first hard rain. 'Twas after that folks got nervous about being out at night and the children wouldn't play in the corn fields. Said they could hear men's voices and the sounds of fighting. We laughed, for children's minds run as wild as they do in the summer, shoeless and chasing fireflies. Naught came of their fears. We found only corn and the sandy area where nothing grew.

But my people were scared like they never been scared before, and I decided something had to be done to settle the fools before they shot some young lovers out for a night under the stars.

~0O0~

The corn leaves rattled in the wind, dry husks of dead leaves crunching under my feet as I walked the rows of corn. Nothing else made a sound. No foxes racing over the fields shorn of golden wheat. No owls, swooping low in search of mice. No mice, scurrying about for a grain or two.

No grasshoppers. No crickets.

Nothing.

It was eerily silent with only the wind stirring the night.

Something moved suddenly, a dark dash of motion that had me spinning, torch raised in my hand as my other hand fumbled for the knife at my belt. Flickering light fell on the scarecrow, tied tight to a sturdy pole set deep in the ground, straw stuffing rustling in the wind, and his tattered cape fluttered before stilling. I let out a quiet laugh, nervous and high, and my heart pounded harder when the sound only seemed to be swallowed in the odd silence of the field.

With a last hard look at the scarecrow, I turned and set off toward the stretch of sand at the base of the hills. The fields ran near right up to that sandy pit, with a strip of bare dirt to walk around. Naught would grow in that strip of dirt. Not even turnips or carrots. Even the tall grass that grew all along the tops of the hills and down along the sides in spring left the sand of the pit alone.

And so did we.

The wind blew harder, coming off the sea and winding down through the old ruins of the tower hills, a bitter, briny smell that set the corn rattling again.

I shivered and looked around. Even the moon had deserted me for some clouds and left the night overly dark. There were no voices, no visions of folk long dead, but oh, the wind and the rattling rustle of the corn did set my nerves on edge. I decided I'd seen enough when a sudden gust blew against me, hard and then harder still. I took a step back and felt my boot sink into the sand, just about to my ankle. I staggered and looked down, expecting to see a hole or depression.

Something was wrapped around my ankle! Something tugging and tugging as if it wanted to pull me down into that pit of sand with it. I shouted loud when I saw a glint of white and, lowering the torch, I realized it was bones that had caught my foot. Long bones of fingers wrapped around my ankle, pulling and tugging at me, trying to drag me deep in that pit. I dropped the torch and pulled with all my might against that grip, tight and hard around my ankle, and finally, with a crack and a pop, broke free, that skeleton hand still wrapped around my ankle!

I staggered and tripped forward where sand became solid ground, and began to run hard, heart pounding, running blind, away. Away from that pit, straight into the corn.

Leaves slapped my face, caught at my clothing, pulled at my hair and I yelled something fierce before pulling free.

To run. How long, I can't rightly recall, but it felt as though my heart would burst when I saw the end of the corn row. Rustling leaves and the call of a raven sharp behind me, I pushed hard against the corn stalks that sought to wrap around my feet and trip me up.

But the corn shifted suddenly and there was only a solid row of plants, leaves twined and twisted together, and no matter how I pushed it only pushed back.

I turned and ran the way I'd come, back toward that pit, and I pushed hard to bust sideways through to another row. I was almost there, almost free!

I saw fire. Fire flicking from the top of a corn plant...

No. No, the plant was not on fire.

It moved, MOVED, and stepped out into the row where I stood as if rooted to the ground and I felt my stomach clench, my heart stop when those eyes of glowing fire turned to look at me. The grating sound of a scythe clashing with metal filled my ears, and the scarecrow, suddenly grown huge and hideous, the top of its head burning, it's fingers the blades of scythes, ran at me with a rattling cough of a laugh.

I screamed and ran like I have never run all my life, leaping over corn plants and slashing at them with my knife, shoving through those leaves, but right behind me...

Right behind, I heard the rustling sound of leaves and the crackling sound of fire that flickered from corn husk to corn husk and the rattling cough of the scarecrow. I felt its scythe fingers slashing at me, smelled the scent of fresh green as it cut through corn husks and a sudden sharp burn as those flashing scythes sliced into my back.

I staggered forward and burst out of the corn field, suddenly free of grasping leaves and ran as if the very wraiths of Sauron were on my trail. I didn't stop until I pounded across the bridge, almost collapsing at the first poles of the barricade wall we had put up against wolves.

Looking behind me, expecting the scarecrow, I blew out a breath and stared in disbelief.

Nothing pursued me. The only sound was my labored breathing and pounding heart.

I knew what I had seen, knew it well, and pushed myself away from that fence to run to the first house in sight. I beat hard on the door and cringed when I heard the guttural croak of a raven behind me, coming near. "OPEN! BEWARE!"

I ran to the next house, panic and a surety that something was coming pushing me through my exhaustion. "AWAKE! AWAKE! TO ARMS!"

From door to door, I yelled and pounded and woke every soul I could, and when they came out sleep-eyed and pinched-faced at being awakened, I yelled to grab bows, grab muskets, grab whatever weapon was at hand and assemble at the barricade wall.

They thought me mad, the crazed-eyed man with shredded clothing and blood running down his back, but then a scream, high and thin, broke the babble and the wailing cry carried across the fields.

Everyone turned, wide-eyed and suddenly silent to stare past the barricade wall.

Out of the hay fields and the corn fields they came, creeping forward slow, just a bit, just a bit. And above them, ravens wheeled and croaked until the sky and the stars with it was naught but feathers and beaks and flashing, gleaming eyes.

We stood then, shoulder to shoulder, musket and pitchfork and bow, and trembled at the sight of those living creatures of straw and hay slowly, surely creeping forward. Row upon row of them, as if the winds had gathered up the hay and bound it together then given it breath.

Right up against the barricade they came, pushing against the solid logs dug deep until the barricade groaned as if in agony, and when the rustling and groaning was almost too much and the logs must surely shatter...

They stopped.

And the silence was achingly loud.

They looked at us with eyes that gleamed with unnatural fire, cold and angry in the bitterness of night.

One shifted forward, taller the than rest with eyes of malice set in that straw, red and gleaming, and arms of branches, knobby and stiff. A beard of corn silk beneath corn husks for lips, some awful mockery of man, and it spoke, voice deep and treacherous. "Eleven years you have harvested this land. Eleven years with hands of greed that took even the gleanings and left nothing for the hungry dead who roam the hills. By blood and strength did we win this land, and _they_ killed us with treachery and lies. They buried our bodies unmarked. Unremembered." It's voice made us shake and tremble. "Long ago did they pass, and we remain. Eleven years have you robbed this land, but by blood and death do we claim it now!"

"Hold!" Shaking and trembling, I stepped forward. The voice was compelling, but fear held me fast to my resolve. Fear of losing all we had built, all we loved. The bitter cold nights were coming, days growing short and there was nowhere we could go.

This was our home.

I grabbed a torch and held it in my trembling hand. "Eleven years you say we have held this land, growing and reaping crops. Eleven years and never one warning, never a single whisper it was not ours! What held you silent so long, Lord of the Hay?"

Could a creature of straw and corn silk sneer? I swear it so, it did. The deep voice boomed over the fields, sending the ravens to the air again. "Eleven years we suffered you, thieves and cowards!"

"Stand back!" Angry now, I took a step forward. "By hard labor we claimed this land and made empty fields and forests a home. By blood of our own people we have paid, and hard labour as well!" Young Miller's face rose in my mind, cheeks still round with youth, and his blue eyes merry. His father had no child upon which to pass his trade, and his house was silent and still with the mourning for that beloved son. I saw someone move to stand next to me, and then another, and another. I held the torch higher, hand steady now. "You have no claim on this land, Lord of the Hay!"

Someone lit an arrow and shot it, and the flaming barb slapped the barricade wall with a solid thunk, close enough that the threatening figure shifted away. Red eyes gleamed solid as the ravens came back to the trees and settled along the barricade wall like a black cloak. "Blood you have spilled, and that claim I cannot deny. But mark my words, Man." It moved back, that terrible figure, but it laughed deep and low, a sound that made some drop their weapons and cover their ears. "Eleven years from now, we will return for a reckoning."

And like a wave of silence and darkness, they faded away, back into the fields and the ravens took wing, flying up into the night sky.

Eleven years.

* * *

My children are grown now, and they work the land, though we leave the lands closest that sand pit well alone. The fields have lain fallow for nigh over ten years.

Eleven years is almost come and no one has died, nor has anyone been grievously wounded.

No blood has been spilled on those fields.

Eleven years is almost up.

I do not know what will come out of those fields for us this time.

* * *

 **NOTES:** _"...nearly seventy of the ruffians lay dead on the field, and a dozen were prisoners. Nineteen hobbits were killed, and some thirty were wounded. The dead ruffians were laden on waggons and hauled off to an old sand-pit nearby and there buried: in the Battle Pit, as it was aftwards called. The fallen hobbits were laid together in a grave on the hill-side, where later a great stone was set up with a garden about it. So ended the Battle of the Bywater, 1429, the last battle fought in the Shire..."_  
The movies left out the Scouring of the Shire, and it's too bad! Sauron was killed when Wormtongue cut his throat and Wormtongue was killed by hobbit arrows. A much more satisfying end I think!  
 **Thanks for reading and please, let me know what you liked or hated the most.**


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